China has cut the area of its largest Chinese alligator natural reserve in east China's Anhui Province to half for intensive protection, a local official said Wednesday.

The 43,300 hectares of Xuancheng Chinese Alligators National Natural Reserve is too large and some parts of the area is no longer suitable for the alligators to live, said Zhu Jialong, head of the natural reserve administration bureau.

The natural reserve is expected to be reduced to 18,600 hectares. But the core protection area will grow to 5,188 hectares from the former 41 hectares. Human activities, industrial and tourism developments are banned in the core protection areas, he said.

The natural reserve will focus on the rehabilitation of the habitat for the alligators and improve their natural breeding capabilities.

The natural reserve expanded extensively when it was upgraded to a national-level natural reserve in 1986. It has covered vast farmland and populous villages, which were not the habitats for the alligators, he said.

Reducing the unnecessary protection areas can concentrate the limited capital and resources to protect the Chinese alligators, also known as the Yangtze alligator, which have existed for 200 million years, he said.

The Chinese alligator is now safe from extinction, according to Zhu, but remains listed as one of the most endangered creatures in the world.

To protect Chinese alligators, which are under state first-grade protection, from extinction, the Chinese government set up the Chinese Alligators Breeding Research Center in Xuancheng in 1979.

The number of Chinese alligators at the center has risen from about 200 to more than 15,000. The center said it could hatch 1,500 such reptiles a year.

According to a research survey in 2005, less than 150 Chinese alligators were believed to be living in the wild, in pockets in east China's Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces.

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